


acceptance speech

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, F/M, he falls head over foot in love with her, michelle jones is an actress, peter parker is a director, the hollywood au I wrote on tumblr once a very long time ago is now a proper fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26650309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: At the end of his senior year at USC, Peter lies awake in his bed and runs over his failures in 35mm. It feels epically suffocating.He grunts, slamming his hand on the twisted duvet, and rolls out of his bed. Peter can't help but pace, running tracks in his shitty carpet, as his brain spirals out of control. So, he starts to write.At first, he writes about how angry he is, and how frustrating being thrust into the adult world with no compass feels, but it starts to transform the more his thoughts unwind on the page. It becomes less of a diary and more of a monologue. It is true and tired.Hours start to slip out of his fingertips, eating at time, and when he blinks to realization as the sun starts to rise, Peter has something of a script on his hands. Or the outlines of one. He doesn't know what it is or why it makes his eyes wet, but he has the feeling he shouldn't stop now. He should keep pushing.or Peter Parker wants to be a director. Michelle Jones is an actress.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	acceptance speech

**Author's Note:**

> This is an adaptation of an old headcanon of mine on tumblr. I have to stop adapting these headcanons. Enjoy!

When Peter gets into the USC Film School, he cries. Not polite, in awe tears, but messy and loud back-shaking sobs. The USC Film program is the home of Spielberg and Lucas. Ron Howard once walked its halls. It _makes_ directors. And he got in.

May screams when he shoves the wrinkled acceptance letter into her fist. Ben runs around the room whooping. Peter cries. This kind of good fortune doesn't fall at the feet of poor kids from Queens. It doesn't feel real. He isn't connected or relevant or even important enough to get into a school like USC for directing, but the paper in his Aunt's hand seems to disagree. 

When he finally stops crying enough for oxygen to shock his brain into functioning, he collapses into the rickety kitchen chair. He is going to USC. 

* * *

When he arrives on campus it feels surreal. There are students rushing around in red and shouting across the green to freshman moving in. It is chaos and color, and Peter Parker somehow is a part of it all. 

From the time he was a little kid, little enough that making movies on his shitty, reclaimed dumpster dive computer was all he wanted to do after school, Peter had wanted to be a director. There was something comforting about being behind a camera, like he could see the world more clearly. Behind his camera, he made half-a-dozen dumb movies with his friends on the subway in middle school, even if the rush of the trains were always too loud to properly hear his shitty dialogue. All throughout his childhood, whenever he had a moment to spare, he was making little movies.

By the time he was in high school, his dumb movies got a production value jump when he joined the AV Club. Suddenly his crappy movies on reclaimed materials were being made on old equipment from 1995. He had thought they were decent. Mr. Harrison, the AV Club supervisor, thought they had perspective. So, he applied to USC, like some of his dumb movies might be good enough to have people with real talent review them. 

He feels his bottom lip go and Peter attempts to wrangle his rising emotions. He promised his Aunt, when she kissed him on the forehead at JFK, that he wouldn't cry. He tries to remember his promise as he looks out at campus and comes to grips with the future. He isn't in Queens anymore. Any of these kids, the ones unpacking and screaming at their parents that could afford to join them on campus for move-in day, could be the next Gerwig or Peele. He is among giants. 

Which must make him one, too. 

_Weird_ , he thinks, as he hauls the one duffle bag full of everything he brought to college up over his shoulder. 

"Peter Parker!" Someone calls out at the makeshift check-in desk outside his dorm. He scurries to the bored-looking upperclassman and salutes him. The kids offers Peter a little manilla envelope with a set of keys in them. "You're on the fourth floor. Room 418. Roommate is....uh......Ned Leeds."

* * *

It turns out Ned Leeds is also in the Film School. He is gunning to be the next Kathleen Kennedy. He wants to be a big shot producer. And he becomes Peter's best friend. 

The four years at USC, together, are grueling and exhausting and _wonderful_. Everyday is better than the last. He is surrounded by movie magic. 

He has the money and the resources and the support to make short films he never dreamed he was capable of making. With his professors, he creates a shorthand for his work flow, and a specific look and style. He can pick out a Peter Parker film from a line-up of his classmates. It makes him feel like he is dong something important, something _real_. 

Because if he can do it, well, anyone can. 

But college is only four years and pretty soon it is all galloping toward a terrifying finish line. Graduation is breathing down his neck and Peter is lost. The students films he cultivated over the last four years don't really make him a director. They make him a dreamer, just like everyone else in Hollywood. 

And for some unknown and maddening reason, the closer they get to graduation, the more and more it looks like everyone he knows has a plan for post-graduation except for him. Nearly all of his classmates have PA jobs. or have lined-up some entry-level work at studios, or have internships with prominent figures. 

Peter has nothing and the voice in his head, the one that nagged at him when he got his acceptance letter, starts to question everything. He doesn't know anyone or have any real connections. If there was some class on how to make his dreams into a reality, he missed it. 

Ned tosses a cookie at him when Peter suggests as much. "So what?" he says. "So you don't have, like, a conventional plan."

"I don't have any plan," Peter flails. "I mean, I dunno, maybe this was all I get. Maybe these four years were as close as I'll ever get." 

Another cookie hits him square between the eyes. "You'll be fine. You just gotta forge your own path, man." 

When Ned is gone, and the cookie assault has ended, Peter lies awake in his bed and runs over his failures in 35mm. It feels epically suffocating. 

He grunts, slamming his hand on the twisted duvet, and rolls out of his bed. Peter can't help but pace, running tracks in his shitty carpet, as his brain spirals out of control.

"Fucking shit goddamn it." Peter plops down at his desk and rubs at his jaw. The light from his laptop is the only thing that illuminates his room. And he starts to write. 

At first, he writes about how angry he is, and how frustrating being thrust into the adult world with no compass feels, but it starts to transform the more his thoughts unwind on the page. It becomes less of a diary and more of a monologue. It is true and tired.

Hours start to slip out of his fingertips, eating at time, and when he blinks to realization as the sun starts to rise, Peter has something of a script on his hands. Or the outlines of one. He doesn't know what it is or why it makes his eyes wet, but he has the feeling he shouldn't stop now. He should keep pushing. 

And so, Peter keeps writing. 

* * *

It doesn't make sense, why he keeps writing with a fury on this script. In all his time at USC, Peter's writing classes were always a burden to him. He had to take them to graduate, but he never liked them. He never felt like he had a voice, like he had something truly significant to say, his power was always behind the camera, but writing this movie starts to become the only thing getting Peter through the sheer terror of graduation. 

_Until I Fade Out_ is refreshingly frank and honest and precious to Peter. It becomes his refuge to talk about his fears. 

When Peter graduates, he keeps writing.

When his friends start their industry jobs, he keeps writing.

Three months after graduation, sitting in the shitty apartment he can barely afford and he has blown all of his savings on the cost of living, he finishes his script. 

His keyboard is heavy under his fingers when he types the final words. He feels exhausted. Exhilarated. 

Peter has no idea what to do now. 

But he starts to smile anyway. Peter has a finished script and a vision and so-fucking-what about everything else.

He picks up the phone and makes a phone call. "Hey, Ned. Got time for lunch?"

* * *

Peter gnaws on his flattened nailbeds. Ned is late. Now that he is working as some Executive's Assistant at WB, finding a time for lunch is harder than college when the two could just wander down to the café for a quick bite. It takes three weeks, three excruciating weeks, to find a time for Ned to get away, and now he is late. 

Maybe he hates it, Peter starts to think. Maybe his script is shitty or irrelevant or too meta. Or maybe it is not meta enough. The wait drives him mad. 

Ned flops in the seat opposite of Peter without preamble. “This, _Jesus_ -” He says without a hello. “You have to make this, Peter.”

Peter exhales. The traitorous anxiety he has been holding onto since he finished writing finally withers away and dies. Ned likes it. 

"Really?" he asks, hopefully.

Ned nods. "Absolutely. And I, uh, I think I know where to start." 

* * *

Happy Hogan is a surly sort of fellow. He grunts into his coffee cup while the two young hopefuls pitch the movie to him. Ned is his kind of assistant so Happy endures the whole pitch meeting without scowling too much. It feels like a small mercy, for how much Peter is shaking. 

When they are done, Happy flags down a barista and orders a second coffee. He doesn't say anything about their maybe-movie. He starts to grumble about the lack of a decent cup of coffee on the WB lot and Ned empathizes. Peter remains quiet. He doesn't trust himself to speak. Otherwise he might scream. This is too nerve-wracking. 

It is a terrible thing to want something so much that your whole life feels like it hinges on the whims of one grumpy producer. 

"Okay," Happy says, after he takes another gulp of his fresh coffee. 

Peter blanches. "W-what?"

"Yeah," he exhales. "I'll do it. I can only forward you enough cash to cover everything in the budget you proposed. Not a cent more. So no going over. But yeah, alright. I'm in." 

Peter makes a noise. Like a squeal. Entirely undignified. And leaps up to throw his arms around Happy Hogan. The older man tenses and asks Ned, unhappily, "Is he always like this?"

* * *

With the capital to make the movie, everything happens rather quickly. Ned has a mind for this kind of work and starts to help him arrange the details. If Happy Hogan is their producer on paper, Ned Leeds becomes the producer on the ground. He makes calls and takes meetings and helps Peter scout locations. 

But more than anything, Ned keeps Peter honest. He keeps him on a timeline. And, when necessary, he has the hard conversations Peter is too frazzled to address. 

"You need to call Cindy," he tells Peter on the third scouting trip in Frog Town. 

"I will." 

"No. Now." 

Peter gnaws on his lip. "She has that whole teen drama show or whatever. I don't wanna pull her away." 

"Look, you said you've got this whole movie in your head, right?" 

Peter nods.

"And Cindy is the DP in this movie in your mind, right?" 

Peter nods again. 

"Then, call Cindy." 

He wants to call Cindy-- he really does-- but he couldn't stand it if she said no, he realizes, as he fumbles with the phone Ned pushes at him. She was his DP back in school. They worked on most of their student films together and they have a short hand, a way of working, that makes him feel comfortable. This huge leap of faith is going to need some comfort. Besides, Cindy has always been able to keep Peter on track. Like Ned. 

Peter Parker needs lots of people in his life to refocus him. He is a little _frazzled_. Generally. 

The phone rings before he knows what to do with himself, or even what he will say, and she picks up the phone on the third ring. "Hello? Ned?" 

Peter croaks, "Actually, its Peter. Peter Parker." 

Her warm voice laughs through the phone. "Yeah, I know which Peter this is. Hey Pete. What's up?" 

"Look. Cindy. I-- you wanna DP my movie?" There is static on the other end of the line. It doesn't sound like the good kind, so Peter starts to ramble. "I mean, the pay is shitty. Consistent. But shitty. And like, I dunno, I feel like you were made to make this movie. And I wouldn't call if I thought anybody else could do it. Not that you were my last choice! But." He breathes out. "Cindy. You're the best. I need the best." 

He hears her breathe into the phone unevenly. It isn't the vote of confidence he would prefer, but Peter is patient. "Pete. I'm glad you called, but this is a real show I'm working on. It isn't high art, but its legit. And if I'm going to work my way up being a PA here is going to help me do that." 

He feels his chest boom in disappointment. "I'm sorry," she tacks on. "Really. I am."

"No. No, I understand. Really. Can I just...can I send it to you? My movie? Before you make any decisions?" 

She laughs, like before, and it helps soften the bruise to his ego. "Sure thing, Parker."

* * *

_He hears the story like this:_

The crappy show that Cindy is working on is Michelle Jones' Freeform show. She isn't an A-List Star or anything, but she has some slight name recognition. People like working with her, even if she isn't considered _serious_. But her show is bad. It is worse than bad. It is good hair and shitty dialogue and adults pretending to be teenagers having sex that is more glamorous than real sex has any business being. 

And, one day at work on said show, Cindy leaves the script that Peter gives her on the krafty table at work. 

Michelle Jones picks it up. She brings it back to her trailer and she reads it. No, she _devours_ it. 

By the end of the work day, she is floating around set listlessly, weighted down by the words, when she approaches Cindy Moon with the pages. "I think this is yours," she says.

Cindy, who at best is considered a coffee gremlin on set, is appropriately confounded by the appearance of the star of her show speaking in her general direction. "Uh. Hi. I'm--"

"Cindy," Michelle smiles. "I know." Cindy raises her eyebrow in a question that Michelle answers without prompting. "Watermark on your script." 

"But how'd you know I was Cindy?" 

Her lip curls in amusement. "You get me my coffee like three times a day. I'd be a dick not to know it. Besides, there are, like, no women on this set. I try to learn all of their names." 

Cindy can't do much more than stand there. Michelle eases the silence by asking, "That script is great." 

"Oh." Her words shock Cindy into action. She tucks the papers under her arm and tries to be casual, which might as well be a feat she has never before accomplished, the way she is acting. "My friend Peter. He, uh, its his film. There is this producer at WB who financed it. Not that it's a WB film. Indie. Small. Just financed by one of their guys. And he wants me to be the cinematographer on it." There is a beat. "I'm sorry. Why are you talking to me?" 

Without blinking, Michelle advises her, "Do it." 

Cindy sputters more, "What?" 

"It's good. It's really good." As she walks away, Michelle manages to throw one last curve ball into the universe, when she offhandedly remarks, "And tell your friend--what was it, Peter?-- that if he is looking for someone to play Tisha. I'll make the time." 

* * *

"She didn't say that," Peter laments, after Cindy finishes telling him and Ned the story the twelfth time. 

Cindy tosses a breadstick at his head. He narrowly ducks. "Yes, she did. Swear on Rachel Morrison." 

"Blaspheme," Ned gasps, as he tucks into another slice of pizza. 

She ignores him expertly. "I swear she did." 

"Whatever," Peter flushes. "So? Verdict?" 

Cindy rolls her eyes and lifts another breadstick. She lifts reaches across his flimsy kitchen table and dubs him, "I dub thee, Peter Parker, formal recipient of Cindy Moon as your DP." 

He leaps to his feet and hugs her tightly. Unlike Happy, Cindy hugs him back, delighted. 

Ned grumbles into his pizza. "Sure, Cindy gets hugs but not Ned." 

Peter laughs more and, without coordinating the assault, Peter and Cindy attack Ned with cuddles. 

* * *

When Cindy leaves set the next day, after handing in her resignation, serendipity intervenes.

An arm reaches out and tugs Cindy to a stop. “Fuck,” Michelle groans. “You move fast. I’ve been calling your name for like two whole minutes.”

Cindy stares in disbelief. “Um. Sorry?”

“No,” Michelle shakes her head. "It's cool. Look, I saw you leaving and I just have to ask. Are you doing that movie?”

Cindy bites her lip and nods.

Michelle grins, “That's good. Great even. I’m happy for you." It should be the end of the whole conversation, but Michelle doesn't stop there. "Hang on. Take my number. If he can’t find anyone for Tisha, please, call me. I’m in the middle of shooting the season but I’d shoot on the weekends or late nights. Whatever. Just, promise to keep me in mind."

Cindy gawks.

Michelle, for her part, looks sheepish. "Don’t forget.”

* * *

When he is given the slip of paper with the hastily written phone number, he stares at it for a very long time. Too long. And then he tucks it away, effectively forgetting about it, or pretending he does. It is ridiculous to even assume that she would actually really want to be in his movie. Besides, he wouldn't know what to do with an actress like Michelle Jones. All legit on his weird independent movie. 

But sometimes, late a night, he takes the paper out of the drawer he locked it in and looks at it some more. Like a vote of confidence. Like someone, somewhere, believes in him. 

It is on one of those late nights he does something reckless and stupid. 

"Michelle?" he says, when she picks up the phone. 

She sharply snaps, “How did you get this number?" 

"Oh fuck." He curses. "No. Look. I'm not a stalker. Uh. I'm Peter Parker. You know Cindy. I mean, you gave Cindy your number." 

"Excuse me?" 

"Cindy Moon? Okay. Uh. She was a PA on your show. You read my movie. You said you wanted to be considered for it. And I just, oof, I shouldn't have called, huh?" 

As he goes to hang up, she hastily speaks, "No! No. I remember now. Until I Fade Out." 

His heart does something traitorous when she says the name of his film. He gulps loudly, "Yeah." 

"Yes." 

Peter wants to hide in a hole. "No. Of course. Yes. Not yeah. Ignore me. I'm from Queens." 

She laughs and it tangles up some of the wiring in his head. "No. I meant yes, as in yes, I would like to do your movie." 

"What?" He balks. 

"Unless you don't want me to be in your movie." 

He nearly faints. Things like this do not happen to Peter Parker. "No, I do." 

"Cool. Then yes, I wanna do your movie. Um."

She trails off like she doesn't know what to call him. He doesn't mind that she has already forgotten. He fills in the missing gap. "Peter." 

"Hi Peter, I'm Michelle." 


End file.
